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October 27, 2020

CMH to break ground for cancer center this week, right on schedule

A rendering of a two-store large brick building with an enclosed atrium area on the roof Image / Courtesy Central Maine Healthcare Construction of Central Maine Healthcare’s $38 million cancer center will begin next week on its Lewiston campus.
By Maureen Milliken

Central Maine Healthcare plans to break ground Thursday on its $38 million Cancer Care Center and begin construction Monday, right on schedule.

The Lewiston-based health care system announced its plans a year ago, and at a public information meeting about them in January said construction on the 50,000-square-foot building on its downtown campus would begin this fall. The plans were given a go-ahead by the state Department of Health and Human Services in April. The cancer center is expected to be completed by the first quarter in 2022.

The facility will be built next to the Main Street entrance of the Central Maine Medical Center campus. System officials said the center has become a necessity since oncology services are now scattered around the hospital's large urban campus and in aging buildings that don't support technology upgrades.

The center will put the health care system's radiation oncology, medical oncology and surgical oncology departments all under one roof, as well as other specialties, including therapy, diagnostics and nurse navigators.

Two white-haired men talk to another white-haired man with his back to the camera. all three are wearing expensive winter coats at they're in an indoor construction site.
Photo / Maureen Milliken
Central Maine Healthcare CEO Jeff Brickman, right, and U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, at the health care system's under construction Lewiston urgent care center in February, talk to David Bateman of Batemant Partners LLC. Bateman is also developing CMH's Lewiston cancer center, which is expected to be completed by 2022.

'The time is right'

CEO Jeff Brickman told Mainebiz earlier this year that the plans for the cancer center were in the works before the hospital had to pivot to the pandemic response.

The developer of the project is Bateman Partners LLC, which also built the center's Topsham Care Center and its Lewiston urgent care center, which opened in March. Bateman will own the property and lease it to CMH, which it has also done with the Lewiston care center and one in Topsham that opened in 2018, as well as a Topsham ambulatory care center that's under construction. The architect is MBH Architects, which has offices in New York and San Francisco.

Brickman has said the center not only means cancer patients won't have to navigate the sprawling Lewiston campus; patients in the region also won't have to travel as far for cancer care. The center is expected to largely cater to the hospital's current patients in the Lewiston-Auburn region, but also from affiliated hospitals in Bridgton and Rumford.

Androscoggin County has one of the highest rates of cancer in the state, which has among the highest cancer rates in the country. While the region is a "hot spot for oncology," the health care system hasn't had the facilities to keep care local, he said. "We need to be relevant," he said.

Before the pandemic, there were 42,825 patient visits each year to Central Maine Medical Center's breast center, infusion clinic, radiation oncology department and oncology clinic. Having industry-standard full-service oncology services at CMMC — allowing patients to receive care without having to travel to other care providers — could save the community $993,000 annually in travel costs and prevent patients from having to drive more than 35,000 hours each year, hospital officials said in November when the cancer center was announced.

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